


Crashing and Falling

by ByTheBi



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 02:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18356462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ByTheBi/pseuds/ByTheBi
Summary: Isa wanted nothing more than to slam his head against the wall. Or maybe slam his neighbor's head into the wall instead.He had hoped that he'd be able to get some studying done, but whichever emo asshole dormed right next door was blasting music loud enough to be heard through the paper thin walls.





	Crashing and Falling

_Set the world on fire,_  
_Burn it all down._  
_I’m lighting it up,_  
_L-lightin’ up now._

Isa wanted nothing more than to slam his head against the wall. Or maybe slam his neighbor's head into the wall instead. He did neither, however, only closed his textbook gently and rubbed his eyes. 

He had hoped that he'd be able to get some studying done with his roommate staying over at a friend's apartment for the night, but whichever emo asshole dormed right next door was blasting music loud enough to be heard through the paper thin walls. 

_Scream until it all comes_  
_Crashing, crashing,_  
_C-c-crashing down!_

It wasn't even bad music, Isa conceded after catching himself bobbing his head to the guitar solo that took over next. Just distracting. It was the kind of music that rattled around in his skull until he had no choice but the mouth the lyrics under his breath for some sort of release. In another situation he might not have minded, but there was a test next week and he needed absolute silence to focus. With the library under renovations and the study lounge full of crammers, his options were slim. 

“I’ll just go over and calmly ask him to keep it down,” he muttered, pushing out his chair to stand. He repeated this to himself as he opened the door and walked the five feet down the hall to his neighbor’s door.

Calmly, Isa thought, and pounded his fist on the door. “Hey, asshole!”

A few seconds passed and Isa was rearing up for a second round of knocking when the music abruptly cut off. The door swung open to reveal a tall redhead in a graphic tee and basketball shorts. He looked at Isa curiously. 

“Hey, uh, I don’t think I know you. Unless we have a class together, in which case, sorry-”

“We don’t,” Isa interrupted. “I’m not in your class. I live next door in room 137.”

“Oh!” The redhead’s face lit up and he stuck his hand out. “Nice to meet you then, neighbor. The name’s Lea.”

The guy’s smile was charming, and he was cute enough that Isa felt his anger die down just as quickly as it had overtaken him. They shook hands. Lea’s grip was just as firm and confident as it was warm. 

“I’m Isa.” He paused, recalling why he was here. “And I actually came to talk to you about your music.”

“It’s good, right? When I heard the Nobodies dropped a new album, I just had to listen,” Lea enthused. “Plus, my roommate Demyx has a killer speaker setup that he lets me use.”

Isa grimaced. “I noticed. I’d like for you to lower the volume because I have a calculus exam next week that I’ve been trying to study for.”

“Oh shit, sorry, man” he said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “Who do you have for calc?”

“Brakalova.”

The redhead hissed in sympathy. “Dude, that sucks. I had him last semester and it was hot garbage. Only good thing about him is that he's lazy so he reuses test questions from previous years.”

“Oh?” Now that piqued Isa’s interest. If he did some digging online, maybe he would be able to find a testbank. “Do you happen to remember what format he uses?”

Lea grinned wickedly. “I’ll do you one better -- I still have my tests from last semester, and the ones my brother gave me from last year. You can have them.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course. Think of it as an apology for disturbing you.”

It was amazing, really, how Isa’s feelings towards his neighbor had done a complete 180 in less than five minutes.

“I know we just met, but I could seriously kiss you right now,” he deadpanned. 

“Save that for when you pass,” Lea joked back, shooting Isa a wink that fried his brain. 

Before Isa could think too hard about the odds his neighbor was actually gay and not just the playful, flirty sort, Lea was opening the door and waving him inside. “Come on in. I’ll start digging around for those exams.”

Isa stepped through. “Sure.”

\---

Three weeks later, Isa bounded into the student lounge with a smile on his face. Lea was easy to find, sprawled out on the couch playing a mobile game. At Isa’s approach, he glanced up from his screen.

“Well, well, you look happy today”

Isa lifted Lea’s legs to make room for himself on the couch, letting them fall back onto his lap once he settled; he knew by this point Lea would just complain until he let himself be used as a footrest.

Besides, he didn't really mind.

“I have good reason to be. Look.” 

Isa handed him a stapled stack of papers folded neatly in half. He crossed his arms over his chest, grinning smugly while Lea examined the top sheet. 

“104?” He squawked. He flipped through the sheets, stopping at the last page. “No fair. Brakalova didn't give us an extra credit question last semester.”

“It's likely your class did so terribly he took mercy on mine.”

“Unlike you, who probably fucked up the curve for everyone else,” Lea shot back, tossing the exam into his lap. 

Isa shrugged. Other people's grades weren't his problem. His studying sessions with Lea had shown him how easy it was to get your hands on the right resources on campus so long as you knew the right people, or even just knew someone who knew somebody else who knew the right people.

Lea dropped his feet to the floor and stood. Arms raised over his head, he stretched, elongating every inch of his six feet and two inches. (Isa tried not let that one inch advantage bother him, but Lea liked to brag.) His back popped and he groaned in satisfaction.

“Alright, let's go,” he said, gesturing for Isa to stand.

“Go where?” Isa asked. He put the exam in a folder that he shoved back into his bag and stood. 

“To the Garden, of course!” Lea's grin was bright. “We gotta celebrate your grade with some ice cream.”

Lea always found any excuse to spend his meal credits on ice cream. In fact, he had already stopped by Radiant Garden, one of the on-campus eateries that happened to sell Lea’s favorite brand of ice cream, three times this week. 

“Weren’t you just there yesterday?” Isa pointed out, even as he followed Lea out. 

“Yeah, but that was with Ventus. I haven’t gone with you yet this week.”

Isa rolled his eyes. “Isn’t this supposed to be my reward for doing well? This seems like it’s more for you than me.”

“Oh shut up, you like it too.”

“Not as much as you do, clearly.”

They bickered all the way to the Garden, pausing only long enough to Lea to pay. It was a warm day, so they took their treats outside. Lea perched on the back of a bench, feet planted firmly where his his bottom should be, while Isa took the seat beside him normally. 

“You’re gonna fall one of these days,” he warned. 

Lea waved off the concern, mouth too full of ice cream to argue. Isa shook his head, but allowed comfortable silence to take over while they tried to enjoy their sea-salt ice cream bars before they melted under the early afternoon sun.

It was easy to relax like this, to forget about the papers due next week and the group project he had been dreading. Even with hundreds of students milling about campus, it felt like they had found their own personal bubble, a space stolen just for them amidst the chaos of college life. 

Isa wondered if these moments meant as much to Lea as they did to him. 

He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Lea certainly never seemed to mind his presence, and in fact, even though Lea was pretty popular amongst their year, he sought out Isa more often than the others. They had chemistry. 

And maybe it was just wishful thinking but Isa was certain he had seen Lea checking him out more than once during their gym sessions.

“Hey, let's hit up Oblivion tonight.”

Isa's nose wrinkled in distaste. “Why?” 

“You were complaining that ice cream wasn't enough of a reward, right? So let's go to the bar. I'll buy you a shot.”

Calling Oblivion a bar was generous in Isa's opinion. It was little more than a single room with white walls and sticky floors. They never carded there, which meant it was popular amongst freshmen and sophomores who were willing to pack themselves into the place like sardines just for the alcohol. 

Plus, the music was shit.

“No thank you,” Isa said brusquely. He bit off a chunk of ice cream just because he knew it would make Lea cringe. “That place is more befitting a punishment than a reward.”

“You're impossible to please, you know that?”

“I apologize for having decent standards. Besides, I never said you had to do anything for me. It was just one exam.”

“Well maybe I want to do something for you, did ya think of that?” Lea said, poking Isa in the shoulder for emphasis. “But you're way too hard to come up with gifts for.”

“Well maybe I want-” Isa cut him himself abruptly, jamming the rest of his his popsicle into his mouth.

He knew exactly what he wanted. 

“Go on, don’t leave me hanging here,” Lea exclaimed, noting his hesitation and latching onto it. “Tell me what you want, Isa.”

His teeth clenched around the stick. Now or never, right?

“Do you remember what I said when you first gave me the resources for Brakalova’s exams?” he started, feeling oddly coy. 

“‘Lea, you spelled the professor’s name wrong.’”

Isa snorted. “Before that.”

Lea put a hand to his chin in consideration. He had finished his ice cream long before Isa and like him, the wooden stick jutting from his pink lips. Isa stared.

“Hmm, nope, can’t say that I remember.”

“I had said I was so happy I could kiss you,” he said quietly. “And you told me to save it for when I passed… Well, I passed.”

“Oh,” Lea said dumbly. Before Isa could read too much into that one word, he promptly fell backwards off the bench, landing on his back in the grass. The thud as he hit the ground made Isa wince. 

Isa twisted in his seat to peer over the back. “Lea? Are you alright?”

A groan. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just didn’t expect to fall that hard…”

“I told y-”

“For you.”

“...What?”

“I said, I didn’t expect to _fall_ that hard for you,” Lea said with a huge grin, shooting finger guns up at him.

Isa sputtered, feeling his face heat despite how lame the line had been. “Did you just-”

“Throw myself off a bench just to say that line? Yeah. I had to outdo you somehow,” Lea explained, dragging himself onto his knees. He folded his arms on the back of the bench and rested his head on them, putting him inches away from Isa’s face. “I’ve been wanting to ask you out for a while, but you beat me to it.”

Isa’s mouth somehow recovered before his brain did. “So are you going to kiss me or will I end up beating you to that too?”

Lea surged forward, closing the bit of space between them with a surprisingly chaste kiss - a soft press of the lips that still left them both rosy as he pulled away. 

“There,” he said smugly, though his eyes were bright with genuine excitement. “Now if anyone asks, you have to tell them that I’m the one who initiated our first kiss.”

“You can have the first,” Isa answered, already leaning in again. “I call dibs on the second.”

As their lips met a second time, Isa wondered who would start their third, their tenth, their one-hundredth. 

He had plenty of time to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the sole reason that this pairing needs more cute AUs gosh darn it. I hope you enjoyed it!!
> 
> Please gush over these two with me over on twitter @Bi_the_By


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